Changing
by Cards
Summary: Every since we grew up they all though we was gunna get married... I did too.


When we walk down the street together people stare. Two beautiful children walking amid filth. It always gathers people's attention. We've always been beautiful, him with his tanned skin, evidence of his Italian mother and his blonde hair the only gift from his Irish father. His eyes from neither of them, blue and clear as anything, as if they could pierce the soul. I've been beautiful with blonde hair, golden with ruby streaks of red. My parents gift to me before they died. My eyes are blue but not a clear as his, they seem to not understand the idea of a constant colour, instead changing from dark to light dependant on how the light hits them.

When we were little we played in the gutters, picking up dead things and making them play things. We hid behind dead horses creating forts in our imagination like my uncle would tell us about the Spanish War. His mother and my Aunt were best friends, and after my parents died my Aunt and Uncle took me in. When we did that sometimes people would be shocked, two children playing with the dead. But to us it was just life.

As we grew older and our bodies started changing we would hear the old ladies of the Irish neighbor hood we lived in talk about our wedding, we weren't planning it. I was too busy trying to understand why the boys I had once roughhoused with wanted to kiss me. And He was busy worrying about why he wanted to kiss them.

But now we're old, I've graduated High School. And he's just about to. But we walk in Central Park me in some uncomfortable dress and him looking dapper in his suit. I tell him about the boy I'm seeing of the moment, a strange boy, unlike the other ones I've courted. He smiled his hand nonchalantly around my waist. An old woman stares making a harrumph sound in her throat. It doesn't matter to me. I just worry that his mother will see and drag us both home by our ears like she used to when we were caught stealing from the penny shop.

We smile at each other, and he grins, the grin with a slightly crooked front tooth that used to sell him papers even when he grew older then cuteness should get you. I raise my eyebrow, giving him a look which he says is exactly like my aunt. I ask if he's found someone yet. He blushes and looks down.

"Spot" I grin needling him slightly "Tell".

"There's this boy" He whispered.

"Oh?" I grinned, wondering fretfully if this boy is good enough for him.

When he first told me I wasn't so sure I could still like him. The Priest did say it was wrong, right? And our Irish Catholic Neighborhood defiantly said it was wrong. But he was the same, he was the same charmingly charismatic boy that made girls, and now after I had thought about it, boys turn in the street. He didn't change that, he didn't suddenly start stealing my dresses and wearing them. He didn't turn into a wimp, Spot still beat everyone at fighting, he was still the same boy.

He nods, looking off into the distance. I rest my head on his shoulder as he puts his arm around my waist. He pulls me close, and for an instant I regret that we will never plan our wedding, as he's the best man I've ever known. I wonder if he wishes the same of me. Or is he slightly repulsed by me. I don't think of this much. But this moment is so perfect I have to do something to ruin it in my mind.

"So whats this boy's name?"

Spot smiles looking over at me. He's changes since being the little newsie who commanded so much power. I mean he still holds that power, all the boys he works with all look up to him, and I do as well. But there is something deeper about how he holds power now, and what he does with it.

"He's a boy from work,"

"Does he have a name?" I smile as we start walking again, his hand dropping from my waist.

"James" He smiles.

"Is he queer?" I ask softly, lowering my face and blushing lightly.

"I don't know." Spot smiles, changing the subject. "So what's your fellow's name?"

"You'll laugh!" I smile blushing even darker.

"No I won't"

"Do you remember that boy, from Manhattan"

"Which one?"

"Oh shush! That one who called himself Blink"

"The boy with they eye patch?"

"Yes!" I blush even darker.

"Your aunt would throw a fit" He points out.

"Well she's still hoping for you to propose."

This time it is his time to blush in embarrassment. And I feel like a fool.

"I didn't mean anything."

"No you're right." He whispers. We pause again. "I mean its not like we're little kids anymore.

I want to tell him then that I wish we were. I want him to just be my best friend. To not have my aunt warning me every time I come in from dancing with Spot that if I continue doing this no one will have me. I want to just be able to relax with him. For everything to go back to playing in the streets and us just being cute children. Now we're both beautiful and people expect more from us. And for a long time I expected more of him. When he told me he prefers boys I was mad. I had always thought, like the rest of the neighbor hood that I would marry him some day. The boys I courted were all compared to him.

"We aren't" I whisper back.

He leads me over to a bench, we sit. Neither one of us able to relax. My aunt has decided that I need to wear a corset, this makes my life so much harder, though even Spot will admit that it makes me look quite attractive. I am no longer able to be comfortable at all. Spot sits in his Sunday finest, forced by his mother, the only person who has power over him. "I'm sorry"

And he says it so earnestly that it makes me shameful that I had only seconds earlier thought of my anger that he was the way he was.

"Its no ones fault." I whisper.

"Is it though?" He gulps.

"It can't be, you didn't choose this." I say "Why would you?"

He nods, looking at me, carefully. "I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused you with your aunt"

"Its not as though your mother hasn't lectured you for the same things"

"She says I should just marry you"

"Did you tell her?"

"I think she already knows. " He whispers.

And he looks at me, his clear eyes inspecting me carefully from my hair to my dress to my figure.

"You're really beautiful" He says softly. "Why can't I love you like I should?"

I sigh I've always known he was beautiful, he's the one that really turns heads, the one that everyone remembers. I'm beautiful in a passing way, a way that you see and like, but you don't remember. He's the type that people write epic poems about. "I don't know"

This is what makes us sit on the bench, and I know someday he will most likely propose. His mother will make him, and like the suit he'll do as she says. And I'll say yes. Because I can only hope that he will love me like a wife, and that his duty that the church will say makes a difference.

Disclaimer: Me no own

Author's notes: I felt like finishing this, I think it needed finishing. I hope its okay. I tried to make it good. I didn't expect it to take the turn it did, that's what happens when you write something over a really long period of time. This was also written with the newly resurfaces animosity towards slash in my mind. And also "what of the girls who love them". A guy who I love deeply is gay, and I love him even more maybe because of it. But I do compare every guy I meet to him. And I wonder if he wanted more then friendship from me even for the wrong reasons would I take it? Anyway. That's this story.


End file.
